Vol. 23, No. 9 - Access to Energy Newsletter

Several decades ago, even in socialist schools, it was the custom to teach children the phrase "post hoc, ergo propter hoc,'' which means "after this, therefore on account of this.'' This tiny Latin lesson illustrated the fallacy in concluding that a thing which follows another thing is therefore caused by it. See Oxford English Dictionary VII p 1164 (1933-1970). The practice of incorrectly reasoning in this way is termed "post hoc'' reasoning.

Examples of post hoc reasoning are boundless and have been the source of much humor. Mark Twain often used post hoc humor such as in his story about the woman who died after neglecting to adopt the vices of smoking and drinking. Mark Twain's audiences in post Civil War America were very literate in the logic of common sense learned in a free enterprise society. If he were with us today, Mark Twain might find it prudent to have a helper planted in his audiences to give cues about the appropriate times to laugh.

Americans today are still partially immunized against post hoc arguments by this legacy from our intellectual past. Some mutant forms of post hoc logic do afflict us, however, such as the notion that a man cannot stand on his own two feet in society without tax subsidies and preferences because his ancestors over a century ago were enslaved or the fallacy that, since many Americans lead productive and decent lives after attending socialist schools, the socialist schools are to be credited with their accomplishments.

(Selective observation is usually a part of such arguments. Socialist schools which encourage intellectual dishonesty and moral degeneration are not credited with the subsequent moral decay of adults.) Today, far more people fall victim to a close relative of the post hoc virus than to the original virus itself. This new affliction is the fallacy that when two things are statistically correlated they are, therefore, cause and effect. Paraphrasing the original fallacy, people have come to believe "statistically together with this, therefore on account of this.'' (Fear of scholars who read Access to Energy prevents me from attempting the Latin.) Examples of the logical error that correlation proves causality appear almost daily in newspapers, magazines, and other information sources. They also appear regularly in scientific publications. "Scientists'' who should know better are even using this logic in situations where one of the two correlated phenomena is only postulated or even known not to exist.

In the article "Fried Frogs' Eggs'' (Access to Energy 21-9 p 4), we reported the claim by scientists that world-wide amphibian populations are decreasing because of increased UV light levels caused by depletion of the ozone layer. UV light is capable of disrupting living systems as illustrated by its use in water purification and the sterilization of medical instruments or its known role in the induction of skin cancer. It was no surprise, therefore, that these people found that frogs eggs had a higher hatch rate when protected from UV light.

With this mundane observation in hand, however, and the goal of snaring large amounts of your tax dollars in government grants, they immediately pointed out a correlation between a reported recent decrease in world amphibian populations and a claimed recent increase

in world UV light levels - in their scientific report and in their (oh, so important for grant funding) statements to the press. Fame and fortune await those who link their work to the ozone mania.

The problem is that there were no measurements showing an increase in UV light. The best available data showed a slight decrease. The only increase in UV was in the public perception formed by false press reports. Correlation was claimed to prove causality in this case even when the correlation was to a perceived reality, but not to measured reality. For achieving this new low in logic, these scientists were rewarded with large tax-financed grants.

The abandonment of logic in the pursuit of tax money is the most important force driving the correlation-causality arguments that fill our media. Electric shavers and brain tumors; breast cancer and power plants; logging and fish populations - each is a correlation in pursuit of government expenditures, either direct monetary grants or indirect exercise of power through regulation and litigation.

There is only one way to immunize ourselves and our countrymen against this sort of lie. Each person must learn the truth that: Correlation does not prove causality!

Examples can help. A common one is the strong correlation between churches and murders. There is a very strong positive correlation between the number of churches and the number of murders -because both are correlated with high population, not because churches cause murders or vice versa.

Since correlations are usually bolstered by statistical calculations giving the statistical reliability of the correlation, many people believe that "statistics lie'' or that it is possible to "prove a lie with statistics.'' This is nonsense. Statistics is a very valuable branch of applied mathematics and is a great help in establishing scientific truth.

The correlation between murders and churches is statistically reliable, since this correlation is definitely true. The error is in the logical conclusion that, if two things are correlated, they are cause and effect.

AIDS is definitely correlated with the HIV virus. Unproved, so far, is the hypothesis that HIV alone causes AIDS. One or more other AIDS-causing factors may correlate with both.

High cholesterol is correlated with heart disease. Unproved is the hypothesis that high cholesterol causes heart disease. (Recent experiments showing actual lowered death rates with use of cholesterol-lowering drugs do not indisputably prove this either, but they are a significant step in that direction.) Logic is an ordinary part of common sense. To this end, comedians may be much more effective than scientists in correcting errors in logic because they use memorable humor to ridicule errors of common sense that are carried to illogical conclusions.

Global temperatures have increased during the last century. Fortunately, their correlation with increased CO2 fails because the temperature increase preceded the CO2 increase - unless one looks at the whole century and not at the yearly values - or at the ground data, not the satellite data. Correlations are often creatively manufactured.

Correlation does not prove causality! This truth provides protection against much of the "scientific'' propaganda we endure.

In the ongoing political debate over who will have control over the one-seventh of the American economy devoted largely to crisis medicine (government bureaucrats being the most likely), an important question is being overlooked. Although it is understandable that the people of an affluent nation would choose to allot this large proportion of their earnings to good health, why are they getting so little in return? Is the current level of human technology capable of providing only crisis medicine for the great majority of people - who suffer and die long before experiencing 80 or 90 years of healthful life? Is preventive medicine really constrained to a gaggle of correlational studies, health food gurus, and general life style advice that few people follow and even fewer find beneficial? The answer to these questions is definitely, no! Yet, for 30 years I have watched in sorrow as their practical answer was given in the affirmative.

The reason for this seems to be that many of the research and development people who apply technology to health are unable or untrained to think quantitatively, and those who do not have this failing are constrained by government agencies.

These constraints take the form of bureaucratic domination of research through tax-financed institutions, regulations that make advances uneconomical unless huge sums of money are paid for regulatory approval, and a "justice'' system that turns personal tragedies into engines of economic destruction for those who take risks in the development and application of technology that may benefit human health. Consider two examples: Although the measurement method is very outdated and should have been replaced long ago, it is known that useful information about heart function can be obtained by electrodes attached to the skin and monitored to produce an "electrocardiogram.'' Computerized interpretation of these patterns provides useful quantitative data about heart blood supply, beat regularity, and pumping rate - factors that are vitally important to every living human being. The devices that collect this data for a 24-hour period, including the computer to interpret it, have been reduced to tiny, portable machines weighing about five ounces - and selling for about $6,000. (These machines are no more difficult to make than hand-held calculators selling for less than $100.) How is this technology used? Primarily, it is used as part of screening systems to decide which members of the population are now ready for crisis surgical techniques that attempt to save their lives by means of operations costing $50,000 to $100,000 or more. "Checkups'' include 30-second exposures to electrocardiograph machines (usually not the miniature variety) or, sometimes, several minute exposures accompanied by a little exercise. We all participate in a glorious national system to see whose turn it is, based on symptoms and occasional brief measurements, to go under the $100,000 knife - which may, if we are lucky, forestall our imminent and usually premature deaths. Sometimes, if it is suspected that we have problems that have escaped the brief tests, we are attached to one of the five ounce portable units for 24 hours to look for events that appear only occasionally.

In addition, as a result of the personal seriousness of the matter, we are inundated by general advice about life style, nutrition, vitamin supplements, exercise, drugs, and other factors that may change the odds (calculated relative to the whole population and not considering our own individual characteristics) of our being chosen for the knife. Although much of this advice is sensible, it is difficult for us to know which advice is best for us personally, and, in the absence of information about our cardiac health, the advice is only sporadically followed.

Would it not be better to monitor our hearts regularly in all sorts of conditions - exercise, sleep, and other activities - all day, every day (or at least one day per week)? This would build a longitudinal baseline of data for us, individually. Suppose the calculated parameters of the electrocardiogram were simply normalized to our individual life-long baseline (giving them enhanced predictive value), crunched into a single parameter, and combined with predictive research information to display a single number - the probability of death from heart malfunction. Although it would not be perfect because of the fundamental limitations of this technique, this probability would rise for many people long before crisis medicine decided they were candidates for surgery.

Electrocardiograms should be tools for measuring - and allowing us to fight - the probability of disease rather than disease itself. Also, by giving us something quantitatively measurable with which to judge our progress, they could help us to adhere to those healthful habits that lower our own individual probabilities of death - and help us to avoid those fads that are not helpful or even may be harmful to us.

Mass production of portable cardiac monitors (then sold at retail stores for hand-calculator prices) and a little computer software that would be trivial to produce could bring this remarkable tool for preventive medicine within reach of all Americans. Mass marketing would pay development costs even with the regulatory burdens.

Three groups of people stand in the way. First, government regulators who might not allow such dangerous toys in the hands of mere American citizens. Second, some medical people who prefer medicine as a monopolistic system (only some, since the vast majority of physicians place human health above self-interest). Third, some lawyers (only some, we are not complaining here about all lawyers) who would bring lawsuits against the manufacturers and suppliers each time the monitors failed to prevent a heart problem - on the basis that reliance upon the device diverted their clients from other alternatives. Since no predictive device will ever be perfect (especially not the initial technology), there will always be grounds to sue. The more good the device does, the greater the profits of its producers, which can be targeted by the lawyers.

Notice that none of these impediments are technological and none of them enhance human health. They are all distortions of free enterprise which derive from misuse of government power.

As a second example, consider blood and urine analysis which can now provide more health information than electrocardiograms, and, with technology that has already been demonstrated, could provide hundreds of times more. See Access to Energy 23-4, December 1995.

Today, when we "go in for some tests'' and provide blood and urine, the samples are sent to a clinical laboratory that analyzes a few substances - mostly the same few that have been popular for more than 40 years. Each value is then reported to our doctor along with the mean and range for the "normal population.'' No attempt at quantitative interpretation of the entire observed pattern is made and, of course, no baseline pattern is considered for our biochemical individuality. A ten-year-old could look over the data sheet and report sagely that "everything looks fine'' - as our physician does on our next visit.

America's clinical labs charge tens of billions of dollars annually for this service, which our doctor orders whether he wants it or not to avoid legal claims against him for medical malpractice.

These measurements, like the occasional electrocardiogram, do have some merit. If a value is too far out of the normal range, crisis medicine kicks in along with the usual price tag. Also, a little preventive medicine takes place as our blood lipid values are also compared to those of millions of other people, and we are advised to eat less fat -which may be good or bad advice for us individually.

If instead of this charade, a larger number of substances (or even the same number) were measured at low cost, reduced to computerized quantitative patterns, and reported as probabilities of impending disease, then blood and urine analysis - especially used in comparison with life-long individualized profiles - could become a major technological tool permitting us to fight the probability of disease rather than disease itself.

The stakes are high. Avoidance of premature death could add at least a decade to the average lifespan and could avoid the unnecessary suffering that is often a part of early death - suffering that afflicts not only the dying person but also those around him.

The goal of medicine should be to ensure that each person has an optimum chance to live in good health to an age near the intrinsic human life span (now approximately 90 years) and then to die at the greatest individual age possible with a minimum of suffering.

The technological tools to accomplish this already exist. For the most part, however, they are not being applied to the daily, quantitative measurement of individual health that is necessary for preventive medicine. The tools of crisis medicine are remarkable. It is good that they exist and are available when preventive medicine fails. High-tech preventive medicine could accomplish, however, far more of the goals of medical science.

There is no magic here. Nor are geniuses required. It is only necessary for government to get out of the way - to stop taxing away the needed capital, to stop regulating away the needed freedom, to stop fostering a legal system that penalizes those who take risks, and to stop enforcing monopolies for those who cling to obsolete methods.

Until these things are done, we shall each continue to be observers who watch unnecessary suffering and death overtake those around us, one by one, until finally the antitechnologist reaper comes for us.

[This article was written by Bonne W. Posma, who can be reached at Saminco Inc., 10030 Amberwood Road, Fort Myers, FL 33913.] In early 1996, GM announced that its first production electric car, the 2-passenger EVI (formerly called the Impact) would go on sale during the fall of 1996.

Priced at about $35,000, the car's curb weight is 3,000 lbs, including a 320V battery weighing almost 1200 lbs - 40% of the vehicle's weight. The EVI's specifications claim a range of 70-90 miles per charge, requiring 3 hours to charge the battery from a 220V, single phase supply. Initially, the car will only be sold in southwestern states where "the climate is most favorable for EV operation,'' that is, where no energy-hungry heaters will be required.

GM is not claiming that the EVI will be a substitute for all gasoline-powered vehicles, and the car will most likely sell to well-heeled electric car enthusiasts who require a second car for short-range city driving.

Most battery-powered electric vehicle programs have been prompted by California's ill-considered "Zero Emission'' laws (now modified), which mandate that 2% of all vehicles sold in 1998 produce no emissions. Without this coercion and generous tax rebates, it is unlikely that an expensive, heavy car, with a short driving range, requiring 3 hours to recharge, would have ever been developed.

The EVI's biggest problem is its energy source - the 320V battery, which has a rather small energy content of only 16.2 kWh (kilowatt hours). The EVI's electric drive converts about 90% of this energy (14.6 kWh) into the mechanical energy which propels the vehicle.

In comparison, one gallon of gasoline contains 45 kWh of energy, of which about 25%, or 11 kWh, is converted into useful mechanical energy, given the same driving conditions for which the EVI's battery energy content is rated. The rest of this energy is converted to heat (34 kWh), and some of this heat is used to heat the gasoline vehicle's interior during cold weather conditions (see Figure 1).

Today's average car's tank contains between 1.5 to 2.5 gallons when its fuel gauge reads "EMPTY,'' and the EVI, with its battery fully charged, does not have much greater range than that of an ordinary car when "driving on empty.''

There are two other points worth noting:

During 1890 to 1900, a number of electric cars were produced, of which the Riker Electric Victoria (Figure 2) was one of the better designs. It was powered by a 40 cell, 80V lead-acid battery, weighing 800 lbs, which had an energy density of 10 Wh/lb (watt hours per pound), compared to 13.5 Wh/lb for the EVI's battery. It is obvious that the lead acid battery has not improved much over the past 100 years.

Second, suppose that, miraculously, a battery was invented which had the same usable energy content as that contained in a typical car's 16-gallon fuel tank (about 180 kWh), and which could also be recharged in the same time that it would take to fill up this fuel tank. A gas station's pump delivers fuel at about 4 gallons/minute, so it would take 4 minutes to fill up the tank. Now let's assume that this 180 kWh battery could also be recharged in 4 minutes. The rate of energy delivery, or power output, would then be (180 kWh)/4 minutes = (180)(3600) kWh/(4)(60) seconds = 2,700 kW or 2.7 MW (2.7 megawatts). < /FONT >

Suppose that, in a city of 5,000,000 people, 2,000 cars were refueling during peak refueling hours (based on 400 cars/million). This would require an electric power system capable of providing the enormous amount of (2,000)(2.7) MW = 5,400 MW of extra generating capacity.< /FONT >

Considering that a medium-sized power plant is capable of generating about 500 MW, a total switchover to electric cars would require the construction of about 11 extra power plants for each one of our larger metropolitan areas - a situation clearly not anticipated by the advocates of battery-powered electric vehicles!

The beautiful, sleek EVI contains some of the finest 20th Century electric propulsion technology, married to a cumbersome, obsolete 19th century energy source. The EVI represents a shotgun marriage, doomed to fail, forced on us by elitist bureaucrats. It is sad that, when promising alternative electrical energy sources such as fuel cells or cold-fusion generators become economically feasible, the general public may well be soured on electric vehicles, delaying the widespread use of this technology.

Ed note: Referencing History of the Electric Automobile by E. Wakefield, p 43, Bonne Posma, a specialist in electric traction drives, points out that successive improvements in lead acid batteries led to energy densities of 3.7 Wh/lb in 1859, 5.7 Wh/lb in 1881, 10.8 Wh/lb in 1888, and 13.5 Wh/lb in 1995.

Generating pollution-free power for their electric cars will, of course, lead the enviros to advocate nuclear power. Right? Wrong, because most of them are actually antitechnologists in enviro trappings.

For almost 40 years, since Linus Pauling parlayed the linear no-threshold hypothesis of radiation damage into a Nobel Peace Prize during his campaign against American nuclear defense, this model has been the central weapon of the anti-nuclear power politicos. It is probable that no other single myth has done more technological damage than this hypothesis (dishonestly presented, of course, as fact rather than hypothesis by Pauling and his successors). As an indirect killer of human beings through economic and technological loss, it may stand second only to the banning of DDT.

The final death knells of this damaging myth are now being sounded as threshold experiments and hormesis experiments (showing the beneficial health effects of low level radiation) are finding their way from specialized journals to general science publications. "Cancer Risk of Low-Level Exposure'' by Marvin Goldman in Science 271, pp 1821-1822, 29 March 1996, is an example.

When this information spreads to the public media, it is likely to stimulate a technological revolution. In the best interests of not getting too far ahead of this and becoming a negative influence, we refrain for now from answering an obvious question - will the lives saved by radiation hormesis from Chernobyl exceed the lives lost from the initial accident? Hint: The likely answer is definitely not politically correct.

Two applied sciences have a greater effect upon the lives of most people than any others - power production, which transforms and supplies the energy needed for all human technological activities, and medical science, which applies the discoveries of health research to maximize our length and quality of life.

No organization of medical doctors has done more to slow the decay of medical science resulting from intrusion by government than the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons. Now, AAPS has started a peer-reviewed journal, the Medical Sentinel. The first issue of this excellent journal is now available from AAPS at 1601 N. Tucson Blvd., Suite 9, Tucson, AZ 85716, telephone (800) 635-1196.

The Corvallis Gazette-Times of 1 April 1996 reported that the federal Drug Enforcement Administration estimates that 2.4 million American children are taking prescribed Ritalin. Ritalin is prescribed for children diagnosed as "inattentive, impulsive, or hyperactive'' and therefore claimed to have "Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD)'' or "Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder (ADHD)'' depending on the presence of the third "symptom.'' Russell Barkley, billed as a leading ADHD researcher, is quoted as saying, "I've seen it work, time and again. It's not a miracle drug, but it can make the difference between whether kids stay in school or not.''

If I were forced to endure participation in most public schools and their attached social environment, I hope that I, too, would be rational enough to develop an impulsive, hyperactive attention deficit in self defense. Children are essentially being forced into "school'' environments that are alien to ordinary human nature and then being givenpsychoactive drugs to keep them there.

The Wall Street Journal of 28 March 1995, p A14, reports that there has been a sharp increase in precollege students at elite private schools who are diagnosed as "learning disabled.'' It turns out that payment of $1,000 buys a "learning disabled'' certificate which allows the holder to spend 50% longer working the timed Scholastic Aptitude Test for college entrance (4 1/2 hours vs. the usual 3 hours).

This year 30,000 "learning disabled'' students will take the test -up from 18,000 in 1991. Also, new "recentered'' SAT scoring automatically raises their scores about 100 points compared with students of previous years, and calculators now help those who never learned to multiply. Perhaps scores should also be normalized to Ritalin dose.

Here in Josephine County, Oregon, in the backwoods of Oregon and 3,000 miles from Washington, the number people with goods-producing jobs is exceeded by the number of people employed by government. Two thirds of the government employees are in "local education.'' Apparently, Ritalin is essential to our economy.

"Rachel's Folly, The End of Chlorine'' by M. Malkin and M. Fumento; "Nature's Hormone Factory, Endocrine Disrupters in the Natural Environment'' by J. Tolman; and "Science Under Siege'' and the video based on this book by M. Fumento. These are available from the Competitive Enterprise Institute, 1001 Connecticut Avenue, N.W., Suite 1250, Washington, D.C. 20036, telephone (202) 331-1010.
Also, read the Competitive Enterprise Institute's background articles about the tax-financed Environmental Protection Agency purchase of the town of Times Beach, MO, in 1983. For this EPA nonsense, CEI has awarded the EPA its first annual "Panic at the Drop of a Rat Award.'' For so many reasons, EPA is a deserving recipient.
"Human Version of Mad Cow Disease'' by S. Sternberg in Science News 149, p 228 (1996). The British are going to destroy 11 million cattle because of a disease that is being successfully eradicated by measures taken in 1989. This is being done as a result of an unproved hypothesis that 10 people caught a similar disease from cattle. Indirect human deaths from this loss of over $5 billion will be far greater.

"Sugar and Health'' by T. H. Jukes in World Review of Nutrition and Dietetics 48, pp 137-194 (1986), which Professor Jukes sent to me with the comment "What else was in those cookies that made you irritable?'' This is an extensive review of the literature that supports the use of large amounts of sugar as a food. Alas, I also did the experiment with pure sucrose (which did give slightly different symptoms).
If, however, I am ever unfortunate enough to be afflicted with cancer, I shall eagerly embrace the mouse results and eat lots of sugar.
"Stormy Weather Ahead'' in The Economist of 23 March 1996, which summarizes many of the arguments concerning "global warming'' propaganda, including some of those that discredit it. Clearly some progress is being made against this mania.

"Leaking Underground Storage Tank Problem May Be Overblown'' in The Torch 5, No. 2, pp 1 and 7, (1996) available from 5535 E. Rosewood Street, Tucson, AZ 85711 reports research at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory showing that cleanups of ground contamination from leaking underground fuel storage tanks are unnecessary unless the tank is within 250 feet of a drinking water well. Otherwise, naturally occurring microorganisms in soil provide a sufficient cleanup. California alone is expected to save $3 billion by terminating most of the ongoing enviro assault on fuel storage.